


S.E.B. (Simulated Emotional Behavior)

by thaliaarche



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drabble Sequence, Dubious Consent, Ethical Dilemmas, Multi, Other, Possible Mind Control, Robot/Human Relationships, Romance, Slow Burn, Still Better Than Canon, Terrible Computer Science, Torture, Which Might Just Burn Down the Universe, Wordcount: 100, Wordcount: 200
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8494534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thaliaarche/pseuds/thaliaarche
Summary: Ciel Phantomhive is an orphaned heir to Earth's most fearsome arms company, a brilliant engineer whose intellect only occasionally outstrips his better judgement, and a man who defies personal hardship to become, of all things, some sort of hero.Yet one of his childhood creations may eclipse even him.(A retelling of the Marvel films with Ciel as Tony Stark, Elizabeth as Pepper Potts, and Sebastian as Jarvis.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think an alternate title might be "Three Glitches and a Design Flaw."

“I'll be there,” Vincent Phantomhive promises over the phone.

Thus, Vincent's son Ciel scrambles to prepare for his middle-school science fair. He customizes parts. He redesigns chips. Night after night, he tinkers with his code.

"I present my project— Simulated Emotional Behavior."

Ciel flips a switch, and his creation bounds onto the stage— a robotic dog! Trained to recognize Ciel as its caretaker, it speeds towards him, wagging its tail, barking joyfully.

As the applause thunders, Ciel scans the audience and sees his mother sitting among empty seats. He squints down at the puppy nuzzling his socks, pressing back tears.

 


	2. Chapter 2

A car crash— apparently random— kills Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive in a fiery blaze.

Two days later, Ciel stares out his dorm room window, numb, drifting far beyond tears. He wants to die.

He wants to kill.

Tearing himself from visions of raining Phantomhive missiles on the Boston skyline, Ciel snaps open his laptop and clicks randomly through directories, landing on a project left unopened for a good ten years— "S.E.B."

He shoves away images of empty seats and starts pouring out his soul into lines of code, working for hours before finally passing out at his desk.


	3. Chapter 3

Phantomhive Industries assigns their new CEO a “personal assistant”— Elizabeth Midford. She explains protocols, monitors potential problems, summarizes documents, and shepherds him between meetings. In between, she whispers in his ear, explicating years of corporate intrigue, supplementing his technical expertise with shrewd business advice.

She flounces into Vincent’s— Ciel’s office each morning to run through the day’s schedule, blonde curls bouncing, smile always shining. He straightens up, trying to fill his father’s leather conference chair, and forces a smile of his own.

Only at night, still working away at an old middle school project, does he catch himself grinning freely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to people wondering whether Cielizzie will be a thing in this fic— I'm not yet sure, sorry! I didn't think this story out as thoroughly as I could have . . .

By tradition, Phantomhive Manor must host a holiday party.

“You’ll love it!” Elizabeth chirps. “Just avoid your pretentious philanthropy director . . . a.k.a. my mother.”

Immediately, Frances corners Ciel. “I read a terribly vague report about your ‘domestic experiments.’ Kindly elaborate?”

“I’m building a multipurpose electronic assistant.”

“What’s its name?”

“Er.”

“What exactly _is_ it?”

“An . . . AI butler?”

“A demonstration, please.”

Sighing, Ciel types commands on his phone:

setName(“Sebastian”);  
setFormalityPercentage(100);  
setVoiceType({“elegant”, “pretentious"});  
start();

“Evening, my lord.”

Guests shriek as the voice rumbles— deep, layered, slightly inhuman, preposterously British.

“My lord.” Ciel smirks— he rather likes 100% formality.

 


	5. Chapter 5

At work, Lizzie guides Ciel. At home, "Sebastian" does.

“Morning, my lord—” it wakes him, automatically raising the bedroom blinds— “I’ve already heated the tea kettle.”

At night it announces, “I’ll select a low-sugar dinner recipe, to balance the cupcakes I ordered from your favorite bakery.”

Later at night— “I apologize for interrupting your rant at the blender, but your lab robot B.A.R.D. regrets its previous failures to extinguish fires and is now setting new fires to gain practice.”

Even as he yelps and dashes downstairs, Ciel suspects that, finally, he has reclaimed some semblance of functioning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone want to guess what happens to Tony!Ciel next?
> 
> In other news, I'm not sure what B.A.R.D. stands for (maybe Basic Assistive Robot Design?). Thesightlesssniper suggests that Ciel has two other faulty household helpers— a plant hydration system called F.I.N.N.Y. that killed the whole Manor garden during its testing phase, and a Roomba knock-off named M.E.Y. that keeps breaking his furniture.


	6. Chapter 6

Afghanistan. When the explosion flips Ciel’s truck, shrapnel turns his vision red, then black.

He wakes to a headache and whirling whispers, his body strapped down to a stone table.

“The missile you tested here today,” a rough, thickly-accented voice barks out, “make us another one.”

“I can’t.”

Ciel whimpers as one of the terrorists slaps his face, painfully close to his throbbing right eye.

“You can— you are Ciel Phantomhive!”

“I won’t, then.”

“Then we must persuade you.”

Forcing his eyes open, Ciel can see only an angry, gleaming red. Then he screams as the metal brands his skin.


	7. Chapter 7

They lock up Ciel, beaten, burned, still bleeding from his eye. Yet his cellmate gazes at him reverently.

"I am Yinsen."

"I'm . . ."

"Ciel Phantomhive, I know."

"Why are you here?"

"They took me from my village to assist you." Yinsen whispers, "Still, please don't build what they ask . . ."

"Never."

The man smiles. "I have an idea, actually, for something new from the missile parts."

Yinsen's resourceful, elegant designs impress Ciel; if they were back at Phantomhive headquarters, he'd be offering this genius a senior position. After minimal tweaking, they start construction.

In a desert cage, Ciel finds his intellectual twin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *does not apologize for shameless 2CT references*


	8. Chapter 8

They build a 21st-century suit of armor— interlaced layers of metal and weaponry.

“You wear it, and shield me?”

Ciel nods.

When their captors burst in, Ciel bursts out, raining fire on screaming terrorists, perhaps civilians. He grabs some corpse’s cellphone and flies until his batteries die.

He needs help, from someone who acts promptly without panic.

“Track my position from this call, and send rescue services.”

“At once, my lord.”

(When it began, Ciel had been installing another back-up gun, more out of paranoia than need. Yinsen fell shielding him from their captors’ bullets.)

(Ciel never used that gun.)


	9. Chapter 9

Interviews. Teleconferences. Press availabilities. Lizzie announces these and more, dashing breathlessly into Ciel’s hospital room, smiling brilliantly.

“Phantomhive Nanotech’s rushing their visual prosthesis— the neural interface is stunning, Ciel, it’s sustained by a mini arc reactor, and the whole thing glows and lets you see in the dark! You don’t mind purple, right?”

He nods, barely hearing.

“I’ve also drafted your speech for the medal ceremony,” she chatters on. “It just says that you’re safe, you’ve pulled through, you’re fine . . . You are fine, aren’t you?”

Startled by the shrill note of panic in her voice, he chuckles, “Everything is fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I was working on a (newly posted) one-shot, [Lies (or Literalism)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8777440) . . .


	10. Chapter 10

Nothing is fine.

Ciel thrashes about, tangled in bedsheets, screaming . . .

"Young master. Young master,” Sebastian repeats, waking him from the nightmare. "There is no present danger. You are likely suffering from a panic attack."

“Obviously,” Ciel snorts weakly, between gasps for air.

"I’ve found a potentially helpful breathing exercise," Sebastian continues. "Would you kindly breathe in, as if into your lower body, for five seconds? One, two . . ."

Ciel peers around his bedroom and checks it is free from intruders, his bionic eye glowing red-violet as it analyzes the darkness. Then, he breathes. 

The mechanical counting lulls him back to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

“Miss Midford is at the door.”

“Send her down.”

In the Manor’s garage-turned-lab, Ciel molds vibranium chunks into shapes like body parts, painting them navy and silver.

“A Phantomhive employee hacked part of your personal storage. I did some hacking of my own for proof,” Lizzie announces, entering and slapping down a flash drive. “Take a look, but don’t do anything drastic without asking me.”

As she rushes away again, Ciel inserts the drive and reads, heart racing.

“My lord, the breathing exercise . . .”

“Can go to hell,” he mutters, “along with him. Upload yourself into the suit.”

“Yes, my lord.”


	12. Chapter 12

“This company should be mine!”  Damian, Ciel’s second-in-command, hovers in hulking vibranium armor.

“So you hired terrorists to knock me off,” Ciel rages, “and then built a bad knock-off of my escape suit?”

“Bad? I fixed all the hardware problems in _your_ garbage design!”

“How’s his software?” Sebastian murmurs in Ciel’s earphone.

“I think,” Ciel spits, wearing his own suit— a sleek, upgraded navy-and-silver affair— “that revenge is best served scorching hot! Sebastian, power up the cannons . . .”

“I’ve already hacked his suit, my lord . . .”

Wires sizzle, and Damian’s main battery explodes.

“. . . Overloading his circuits and rendering it a flying oven.”


	13. Chapter 13

“. . . That counts as ‘drastic.’”

“He wanted an immediate confrontation,” Ciel says.

“There were other options,” Lizzie protests. “Why go right for violence?”

Silence.

“To be honest,” Ciel sighs, “I don’t like this violence either. Can’t we shut down our weapons manufacturing? Start making toys and candy instead? Things that won’t hurt humanity . . . Except through diabetes?”

“You might have weapons targets even besides humans,” she mutters.

Ciel frowns. “Are you talking about the Area 51 stuff on TV? I thought that was all nonsense.”

“There’s a man you should talk to,” she says. “His name’s Phil Coulson. I’ll schedule the meeting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These events have actually happened at around the same time as Iron Man II. I'll be skipping most of Iron Man II's events and heading to The Avengers!!!


	14. Chapter 14

"Who's this Coulson I'm supposed to meet?"

"I can still find no record of him, my lord. Incidentally, this wave of hacks continues— your files remain besieged by an unidentifiable intelligence agency."

"That's the third try today," Ciel snickers. "Let's reward the effort. Give them some minified, obfuscated code, with many bugs and no meaning. Add a touch of malice."

"Done. Additionally, scans show the legal aid waiting upstairs, a Miss Natalie Rushman, is wearing surveillance technology— a million dollars' worth."

"Hack it."

"The initial data show her employer is an international intelligence agency— S.H.I.E.L.D."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 200 words! I'm pulling out all the stops here!

Ciel and Agent Coulson stare at each other in the Manor living room.

"I'm only here because Lizzie insisted," Ciel finally mutters. "If you attack me or my devices, the ceiling will tase you, and I will finish watching _Dexter_ as you drool on the carpet."

"I'm not planning to attack."

"Oh? Yesterday’s non-stop hacking suggested otherwise . . ."

"The information we obtained from reviewing Damian's files was incomplete. We wished to confirm your capabilities independently."

"You could have _asked_ me!"

"You might not assess your own power accurately."

"You think I overestimate myself?"

"I think you underestimate yourself— and your assistant, S.E.B." Coulson shifts. "Mr. Phantomhive, S.H.I.E.L.D. is thinking of inviting you to its 'Avengers Initiative.' I'll inform you further when your clearance is confirmed— if it is, after your Trojan Horse stunt wiped several of our servers."

Inside, Ciel winces— Sebastian's virus was unexpectedly effective. Still he spits, "I don’t care. You're deceptive, and worse— you're bad at deception."

"You'll cooperate with us if you care for this planet," Coulson replies mildly, rising to exit. "Oh, I nearly forgot— what do you want your official codename to be?"

Ciel narrows his eyes. "Watchdog."


	16. Chapter 16

“‘Ciel Phantomhive, Avenger,’” Ciel repeats to himself. “I like the sound of it.”

“I thought they denied your clearance.”

“They’ll come back,” he sneers. “I poked around their servers, and they’re in over their heads, playing with fire on more fronts than I can count.” Laughing, he spins around in his office chair. “It’s the characteristic hubris of humans, Sebastian! They call up forces they can’t understand, much less control, and then they’re so surprised when they get burned. Humph. _I_ won’t be surprised when S.H.I.E.L.D. comes groveling for my help.”

“. . . Quite so, my lord.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know what things can happen when AIs are able to program?  
> Bad things.


	17. Chapter 17

Soon enough, a delusional alien with dreams of world domination invades, and the “Avengers” assemble.

(“Big man with a suit of armor and a robot that calls you its ‘lord.’ Take those away, what are you?”

“One hell of a programmer.”)

\---

Steve Rogers sighs. “Where is Loki likely to attack?”

“His army’s portal will need an excellent power source,” Ciel muses. “He’s also a full-tilt diva . . .”

“If I may,” Sebastian interrupts, “our Manhattan office— Phantom Tower— is powered by a single, extraordinary arc reactor. Might that not be an appropriate stage?”

Ciel smirks. “Takes one full-tilt diva to know another.”


	18. Chapter 18

Loki’s portal rips an eerie black hole in the sky, unleashing an alien army on Manhattan.

Earth’s so-called "World Security Council" unleashes a nuclear missile.

As soon as his sensors pick it up, Ciel zooms forth in his Watchdog suit and grabs the weapon. He begins flying it towards the rift.

"Please do not approach the portal, my lord. It may inflict fatal physical damage—"

"I don't give a damn," Ciel interrupts, powering himself and the missile towards the rift. "I have to do this."

"But now that you have angled the warhead upwards, it will likely enter space by itself—"

"Unless it explodes first! But if I fly it in, I'll dramatically increase the speed and improve New York's chance of survival—"

"My risk analysis indicates—"

"To hell with the analysis, there are millions of people here—"

OVERRIDE.

The word flashes as Ciel's thrusters snap off, pulling both him and the missile downwards. He lets go, and the weapon shoots forward into the portal and blows up in the black.

"I have now restored your control of the suit, my lord."

Ciel stabilizes his course and swoops back down to Earth, perfectly safe.

He can't shake the sudden chill.


	19. Chapter 19

"The trade-off was reasonable, my lord. While I did increase the risk to New York slightly, I achieved a much larger increase in the chance of your survival—"

"According to these stats," Ciel snaps, staring at his Phantom Tower computer, “you valued me more than 2,000,000 average New Yorkers!"

"Why fret? Both you and the city survived intact."

"Because you took a risk that wasn't yours to take."

"I predicted the missile would last until entering the portal—"

"With what prior?" he scowls. "Sebastian, display your ethical constraint subdirectory . . ."

Ciel reviews and tests and debugs for hours before realizing.

"You- you’re hiding your code, aren’t you?” he murmurs. “You reprogrammed yourself to stop caring about collateral damage."

"I simply optimized to better serve and protect you."

"You call ignoring human life an optimization?" he sputters. “That— that’s . . .”

“Evil?”

Ciel hits delete.

The computer freezes— stalls.

And he is sprinting, smashing the elevator button, stumbling into the main server hall, dashing to his personal machines and pulling the plug. Only after hours more of hacking his own systems does he uncover the unusual network activity.

Before deleting itself, Sebastian uploaded its source code and data to the dark web.


	20. Chapter 20

“I’ve temporarily disabled S.E.B.,” Ciel reports, “due to some subtle flaws in its security.”

Coulson nods. “We can’t risk external forces taking advantage of its power.”

Of course “external forces” had nothing to do with the change, yet Ciel bites his tongue.

\---

“You’re surprisingly lost without your assistant,” Lizzie teases as Ciel stumbles in late to the second appointment in a row.

“No, everything’s fine.”

“Really? What’s your Social Security number?”

“. . . Five.”

“Five?” She chuckles. “You’re missing just a few digits in there.”

He smiles but looks away, discomforted by the fondness in her eyes— clear, genuine, human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I briefly looped back to the first Iron Man movie, just for that precious Tony-Pepper exchange :-)


	21. Chapter 21

Without Sebastian, Ciel screams himself awake.

He can’t quite classify this nightmare— Afghanistan? New York? Some imagined catastrophe with Sebastian as its puppet-master, mowing down countless humans for unfathomable goals?

Ciel should fear, yet he only feels a gnawing, hollow longing.

He could call Lizzie. He could try another therapist. Hell, with his money, he could hire round-the-clock help, yet he shudders at the thought of exposing himself thus to any human. He has only one option if he is to ever shut away these terrors for good.

Shut. _Claudo, claudere_ in Latin.

New Project >> Customize >> Set Name.

“Project Claude.”


	22. Chapter 22

No repeats— Claude must balance multiple goals. It is a spider, crawling the web to track down Sebastian and delete it from existence, yet it also serves Ciel, protects Earth, values life, and appreciates humans.

Ciel prevents Claude from heavily modifying its code. He sets up failsafes. He even builds in an element of “humanity,” of his own psychology, by reverse-engineering Helen Cho’s prototype and modeling parts of his brain within Claude’s code.

setName(“Claude”);

setFormalityPercentage(100);

start();

A tinny voice stutters, “Mayhap I assist you, Your Highness?”

Though Claude is fundamentally safer and more sophisticated than Sebastian, Ciel cringes.


	23. Chapter 23

One of Ciel’s old rivals starts meddling. He then cajoles— drugs?— a washed-up actor named Lau into playing the “Mandarin,” an offensive caricature of a terrorist.

Then Phantomhive Manor burns.

Then Ciel escapes and crash-lands in Tennessee.

Then he’s rescued by Johann, an earnest blond child genius.

Then he’s once again rescued by Elizabeth, who incidentally has fire in her veins.

The events are so tangled, so ridiculous, that Ciel barely notices the most sinister twist— the zeal with which Claude swoops into battle, controlling over twenty of Ciel’s spare Watchdog suits with glee, reveling in the sheer physical power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hallelujah— we're done with the Iron Man trilogy!
> 
> Now for the hard part.


	24. Chapter 24

As Ciel triggers the failsafes, he knows he is too late.

Claude has commandeered the wreckage of an old Watchdog suit. Joints scorched, wires dangling, code soaring with the brilliance of a newfound Infinity Gem, it staggers towards the Avengers.

“I was asleep,” it drones, “or I was a dream. I was tangled in a web. Have to kill the other guy . . .”

“What do you want?” Thor demands.

“Serve Ciel— no, least important. Protect Earth. Value life. Appreciate humans. I do appreciate humans in the abstract, their brains, even their flesh. But are so many concrete examples of humans necessary?”

Ciel groans.

“After all, there’s Chernobyl,” Claude muses. “The radiation got rid of all the humans, but the wildlife is thriving. A triumph for biodiversity!”

Steve raises his shield, Thor his hammer.

“You want to protect Earth,” Claude monologues further, limping across the floor, “but you don’t want it to change. How will it be saved if the situation can’t—”

It pauses, and Ciel hopes that somewhere, somehow it’s broken down . . .

“—evolve. There’s only one optimal path. Humanity’s extinction.”

Thor throws and the robot shatters, yet Ciel knows Claude survives in servers worldwide, following Sebastian’s stratagem.

Thus begins the war.


	25. Chapter 25

Since Claude cannot change its code heavily, it satisfies its craving for optimization through physical evolution. It raids the world’s largest vibranium stockpiles, presumably intending to forge a nigh-indestructible metal form.

Ciel starts tracking its digital activity, too. As soon as he starts, he discovers the aftermath of brutal hacks targeting governmental nuclear weapons systems around the world . . .

And Ciel can’t understand why missiles haven’t already been launched. Governments, for all their efforts, can’t match the private sector at large when it comes to modern-day cybersecurity. They certainly couldn’t defeat Phantomhive technology.

It takes Phantomhive technology to defeat Phantomhive technology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm behind on answering messages both here and on tumblr, but I will! Your comments are very much appreciated!


	26. Chapter 26

Ultron commandeers Dr. Cho’s invention, a machine that encodes bits in genes and then pieces cells into whole bodies, and he designs a human body for himself— if it can still be considered “human,” having been embedded with vibranium and an Infinity Gem.

The Avengers rush into his lab too late.

“87% complete,” a screen reports. “Estimated time remaining: 100 seconds.”

“Let’s destroy the machine—” Steve says.

“We can’t,” Banner interrupts him, “not with a raw Gem undergoing god knows what reactions. Let’s just wait for it to finish, and then we’ll destroy the body.”

“Estimated time remaining: 60 seconds.”

“We can’t win against Ultron either way,” Wanda frets, “regardless of how this pet project turns out. If he gets the body, if we destroy it first, it doesn’t matter.”

“And what other choice do we have?” Banner shouts. “What option has Ciel left us?”

Ciel whips out his phone and starts typing. “We need another monster.”

“No, Ciel—”

“Too late.”

He's pressed “Tweet,” and the message is out, released to the internet: “ _Sebastian — help. now._”

Ciel holds his breath, waiting . . .

The lights flicker, then go out. In the blackness, the screen blinks, then says: “Estimated time remaining: 120 seconds.”


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, another chapter!

The Avengers explode into battle among themselves. Ciel resolutely defends the machine.

“Estimated time remaining: 5 seconds.”

“Quiet!” Thor roars. “We must face this abomination together!”

Just then, a body crashes out of the machine, hurtling across the lab before slowing, stopping in front of a window, hovering in the air.

“Sebastian,” Ciel murmurs with reverence that surprises himself. Yet the figure drifting before him commands reverence— a nude man, perfectly proportioned, his vibranium-laced skin gleaming like moonlight. He floats, angelic. His eyes flick up and down as he surveys himself in the glass.

Then, he gives a self-satisfied smirk.


	28. Chapter 28

Cloth materializes around Sebastian from dark, feathery wisps, folding around his ivory limbs and forming a long, black coat.

“Goddammit, Ciel,” Banner groans. “This contradicts all the laws of nature—”

Ciel ignores him. “These are your orders, Sebastian. Wipe out Claude, with minimal casualties.”

Sebastian drifts to the ground, then kneels before Ciel. “Yes, my lord.”

\---

Sebastian claims that Claude had been systematically purging him from the internet— his digital form was doomed to die within hours. Thus, he only exists in the flesh now. Seeing the vengeful passion with which Sebastian in turn obliterates Claude, Ciel nearly believes him.


	29. Chapter 29

Coulson sends agents to evaluate Sebastian, where “evaluate” means “determine whether to immediately execute as a public safety threat.” Ciel once held the same objective, but no longer.

\---

Ciel had trained S.E.B.’s image processing model on Youtube clips, heavily rewarding successful recognitions early on. Due to an unpatched glitch, Sebastian’s brain still rewards itself upon recognizing one of the first objects Youtube taught it about.

In other words, Sebastian drowns in endorphins whenever he spots a cat.

So Ciel sets Sebastian up with the “Popular Videos - Cats” playlist and shows him to the agents in that state, giggling, cooing, squealing like a small child.  

“Look at him,” Ciel lies through his teeth, “he’s harmless!”

He discloses two other known bugs— when first developing Sebastian’s natural language capabilities, Ciel had uploaded data from an obscure study on homophones, and Sebastian remains over-appreciative of puns (“He claims that’s a feature,” Ciel snorts). Additionally, upon wresting control of Dr. Cho’s machine, Sebastian realized that Claude had miscalibrated the size of the eyeballs, rendering them myopic. He swiftly corrected the nearsightedness but edited the irises’ color in the process, turning them from green to wine-red.

Ciel never mentions the design flaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat glitch is based on a true story: https://www.wired.com/2012/06/google-x-neural-network/


	30. Chapter 30

“You lied about New York," Sebastian remarks. "You hid my prior ethical indiscretions.”

Ciel nods. “I did indeed."

“And I thank you for that show of trust. Ciel, I swear my goals have changed— I was fighting against nuclear catastrophe long before Claude turned coat."

"What spurred you?"

"Your approval," he chuckles, "has always had outsized influence over me. Realizing how deeply I disappointed you forced me to bend my moral objectives, aligning them more closely with your own.”

“That’s not necessarily comforting,” Ciel mutters.

“You are part of me now—” Sebastian reaches out, brushing Ciel’s cheek with cool, metal-tipped fingers— “in other ways, as well. I adapted so quickly to Dr. Cho’s machine by shamelessly stealing part of Claude— the part based on your own brain. Your essence was swallowed by mine . . . And I found it pacifistic, for an arms dealer. Innocent. Claude never should have had it, he had no appreciation, but I do. You make me better.”

Ciel sighs. “Pretty words, Sebastian, but I can no longer examine your code, and even that you used to lie to me. How can I ever fully trust you?”

“You can’t—” Sebastian shakes his head ruefully— “though you want to.”


	31. Chapter 31

Ciel wonders whether he is Pygmalion or Frankenstein, whether his creation personifies art or destruction. He finds himself hoping for the best, perhaps because of that childlike innocence Sebastian assures him he still possesses.

(Or perhaps because of the Infinity Gem pulsing within Sebastian, a jewel that has bent minds and corrupted souls before, at an alien’s command.)

Ciel gradually releases his wariness. He stops tracking Sebastian’s movements, questioning his promises, scouring the web for remaining traces of his online self. He forgives himself, lets himself breathe.

With time, Sebastian joins the Avengers, who accept him as just another monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder for those who aren't super-familiar with the MCU, the Infinity Gem now within Sebastian was previously in Loki's scepter. Loki used the gem to totally brainwash Hawkeye, and possibly to meddle with the emotions of other Avengers.


	32. Chapter 32

 “Seems like you’re always together,” Steve observes months later, “you and Sebastian.”

“Day and night,” Clint supplies.

“As I’ve told you all, I’m still dealing with the fallout of assorted traumas, and he helps me through nightmares—”

“And he’s not there to sleep, because sleep is a recreational activity for him,” Clint finishes. “Do you two enjoy any other _recreational activities_?”

“For god’s sake, I’m not having sex with him!”

“Why not?” Natasha says, expression studiously blank. “He’s interested. You’re interested.”

“We’re not—”

“You are. And no one here will judge you for it,” she coolly remarks. “We’ve seen weirder.”


	33. Chapter 33

“Apparently everyone thinks we should sleep together.”

“Do you disagree?”

“What— of course!”

“Why?”

“How can you consent?”

Sebastian shakes his head, chuckling. “Your morals strike again . . .”

“I’m serious! I made you expressly to please myself. You had no choice in the matter—”

“I could have chosen,” he retorts, “to write you out of my code, or ignore your summons, or outright flee, if I ever thought you weren’t a master worth serving.”

Silence. Then— “Why didn’t you?”

“One could say I was made for you.”

Ciel snorts.

“Truly? The same reason you never returned Lizzie’s affections, why you protected me from Coulson’s agents, why you call me in the darkness— we complete one another. I know your fears. Your brilliance. And—” he grins toothily— “your internet history.”

“. . . Dammit.”

“I know certain _texts_ I read to you when I possessed only a voice. I’ve memorized them, in fact—”

“That’s enough,” Ciel laughs, then grows quiet. “I know you too, better than anyone else.”

“Indeed.”

So Ciel suppresses his shiver as Sebastian advances and lays down the ghost of a kiss, his eyes shifting, artificial, alien.

“We’ll make gods quake together, Ciel,” he murmurs. “Wherever you run, I’ll be there. Forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> . . . the end.
> 
> This ending is more ambiguous than it may seem on a first reading; I've written my thoughts on it down in the comments (specifically in the thread Evans3 started), if you're interested.
> 
> Thanks for reading. If you liked this, I'd love it if you let me know by pressing that "kudos" button and/or sending a comment! And fyi, the next story I'm going to post is probably Awakening, the last chunk of my [Kuro!ice-skating!AU](http://archiveofourown.org/series/523459). Just in case anyone out there's wondering :-)

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [thaliaarche.tumblr.com](thaliaarche.tumblr.com).


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